When Eve reached Las Virgenes, she turned left and cycled across the 101 freeway overpass to the residential area on the other side. There were undeveloped hills to her left and three townhouse condominium complexes to her right. She lived in a two-story unit on the street. Her windows faced the charred hills and blackened oaks that burned a year ago in a wildfire that started thirty miles north in Stevenson Ranch and was blown west by the hot Santa Ana winds before being put out at the freeway.

She got off her bike at the curb, wheeled it to the front door, and brought it inside, parking it in her entry hall at the base of the stairs. Her living room walls were bare and the dinette set, coffee table, couch, and entertainment center all came from IKEA.

Eve went upstairs to her bedroom and stripped out of her clothes, but she kept on her cap. The dried blood in her hair had stuck to it and she didn’t want to pull any hair out. She got into the shower, stuck her head under the hot water, then eased the wet cap off her head, only losing a few hairs in the process.

The water was scalding, just how she liked it, but the water flow was weak, part of the state’s efforts to conserve water during what was becoming a permanent drought. She shampooed her hair and saw the red swirling amid the white foam at her feet. It brought back unsettling images of Tanya’s bloody bathroom.

She stepped out of the shower and dried off, looking at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. The bruise on her flat stomach was a deep, angry purple. She pressed her ribs, took some deep breaths, and feeling no sharp pains, satisfied herself that nothing was broken. She got out some cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol and gently cleaned the wound on her head.

Eve slipped on a tank top and sweats and went downstairs, where her sister was standing at the kitchen counter, still in her blue nursing scrubs, eating chocolate ice cream out of a container. This was not the first time Lisa had let herself into Eve’s place.

Lisa and Eve shared their mother’s piercing blue eyes but not much else, thanks to having different fathers. Lisa was shorter, rounder, though not chubby, and had curly black hair.

“You look better than you did on TV tonight,” Lisa said.

Now it was official. Everybody thought she looked terrible. “How did you see it at work?”

Lisa handed the spoon to Eve, who carved out a chunk of chocolate ice cream for herself. “It was on in the waiting room. They said a single mother and her two little kids disappeared and that there’s blood all over the house.”

“I wish that stuff about the crime scene hadn’t come out yet.” Eve gave Lisa the spoon and her sister took another bite. They continued sharing the spoon back-and-forth as they talked. “But I suppose it could be worse.”